


Weeding

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 3rd Age - The Stewards, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 21:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3744360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Merry visits Frodo, and they ruminate on the gardener. I love Sam, so obviously they must, too. This was written when I was asked to write about Sam and Merry, specifically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weeding

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

It would surprise most people who knew young Meriadoc Brandybuck to learn that he liked to read. This was however very much the case, as there was always something new to learn about the things he came upon out in the world, and Merry never quite felt at rest if he didn't know something special about things he was presented with.

He especially liked plants. Plants were easy; they had names and properties that could be learned and listed; unlike Fairfeet they would not argue about the plural of their name; unlike sheep, they would not kick him if he tried to look for differently coloured patches in the skin under the wool. Merry could recognise just about every plant and flower you might point out in the rolling fields and mossy forests of the Shire, and he'd probably also be able to name a use or two for it. As a child he had trailed after the healers asking questions and trying their patience until he was given a treat or a task that took his attention elsewhere.

So it was that the first thing he asked when he and Frodo had finished their greetings and the tea kettle was on the stove was "Have you found that book on pipeweed spices yet?"

Frodo laughed, not necessarily because anything was funny, but because Frodo liked to laugh when he was delighted, a soft pleasant chuckle that tickled the throat. "I did, and then I believe I lost it again. Shall we go look in the study?"

Merry followed Frodo through the hobbithole. The study was his favourite part of Bag End, and not only because it was full of books; the musty smell reminded him of home, and also of afternoons hiding and exploring the fine old hole as a child, and of all the libraries he had ever visited. Bilbo might as well have appropriated pieces of the Mathom House, of the Great Smials and Brandyhall, and places Merry didn't even know about, and sprinkled them like spices around the simple untidy room.

Frodo had kept the tradition of disarray up since Bilbo's departure. The study seemed to never change. "I hope I didn't put it somewhere aside for safekeeping," Frodo said, sorting through the loose papers under which you could just about make out the desk, hastily setting them aside on a chair. "If I have, we might never find it again!" Merry grinned.

Not wanting to disturb the careful balance of messiness that he knew very well was vital in a study if one ever wanted to find anything in it, the young Brandybuck restricted himself to looking through the shelves, running his index finger over the spines, reading title after title, some in languages he couldn't recognise, and which reminded him to study them if he found the time or was not distracted by all the fun things life could offer, besides languages he never heard spoken.

There was a sudden lack of rustling and movement behind him, which prompted Merry look over his shoulder at his cousin. Frodo was standing still by the desk, holding a folder of some sort, and looking out the window. Merry walked up behind Frodo and looked over his shoulder. The day was bright and sunny - it was July, a period when lazy hobbit lordlings traditionally went visiting far-off cousins - and the garden was in full bloom. The gardener, young Sam Gamgee, was tugging dandelion leaves out from around the flowerbed by the picket fence.

"Have you met Sam, Merry?" Merry looked away from the garden to see Frodo smiling at him. "He took over since the Gaffer finally admitted his bones complained too much about the hard work."

Merry nodded. "Yes, I talked to him a couple of times before," he said, and looked away. Some true statements might as well be lies, because they only tell half a story.

Meriadoc Brandybuck liked to read, and he especially liked to read about plants. Two summers ago, though, he had started to learn, however hard that lesson was, that there were things you couldn't learn from books, especially when it came to living things.

Sam had brown eyes, he remembered, dark and warm. His fingers had dirt under the nails, as Frodo's did. Merry still did not know how Sam could pick up a single tiny fallen petal without it crumbling, but that he could, and Merry still remembered it lying full and luscious on the tip of a brown finger. Merry couldn't imagine a lie passing Sam's lips, but on the other hand Sam had within half an hour after they first met established a tradition of surprising Merry. It was true that he had only talked to Sam a couple of times before, but those days stretched out long and slow and full in his mind, like few other memories.

The first day he had met Sam there had been a sign on the gate of Bag End and the door and windows locked against visitors or spies, but the garden had been fresh and alive and in need of pruning. Merry, bored and abandoned by his cousins - Frodo lost to the duty of party preparations, little Pippin to the exploration of Hobbiton's muddiest spots, and Fatty to the band of musicians practicing the jig by the party field - had sat on the grass as Sam's shears clipped away at the bushes, and asked question after question until the young hobbit had started answering.

"Yes, Mr. Bilbo told me that name for roses, too," Sam had said. "And it's good to know, I suppose, though it don't tell you anything about roses really worth knowing," he had added a little curtly. "Look here," he had said then, indicating a bush. Merry had hopped to his feet and bounced to look closer. "See the shape of this branch? A child once fell here, and the branch repaired itself as best it could. My gaffer built a structure to support it until it grew strong again; he could have cut it, but the bush wouldn't have been the same. That's an old branch, and balances this side of the bush nicely." He had left the branch, and twirled his fingers ever so gently around another. "This is a branch that has never been broken. It's thicker in the middle, and is branching and sprouting more. See?" Merry nodded.

Sam had then lifted his shears and clipped the branch away. Merry had recoiled in shock. Sam's small smile had been grim.

"That branch was growing too large, too heavy. It would have pulled the bush down, and out of shape. The whole won't suffer for the loss, and the garden will look all the lovelier." He'd sighed as he dropped the branch on the growing pile of its brethren. "Don't mean it's any less of a shame, though."

Frodo's voice jolted Merry out of his reverie. "The old Gaffer Gamgee was an excellent gardener. If you talk to him, he always seems rather harsh and no-nonsense, and is still noted for his great talent for disapproving of things." Frodo was smiling, but there was no laughter now behind his joke; something else fluttered on the edges of his voice. "But I saw him with the plants, when he thought no-one was looking. He touched them as gentle as anything. Weeding, he was always careful not to rip out the roots of the plants he was trying to make room for. That's why he was a wonderful gardener. But Sam..." Frodo's smile bloomed, lighting up his face. "He's like that with _everything._ "

Merry looked at his cousin, whose eyes were now back on his gardener. He recognised that look; and a part of him felt a vicious possessive joy that Frodo didn't seem to have noticed the thing about Sam that most made Merry think, had occupied his thoughts on spare moments when he contemplated roses and gardens, and the weeds that grew around and in them. Merry looked back at the back of the hobbit hunching amongst the green. He stared at the sinuous movement of his arm, and thought of the fingers, digging into the dirt carefully, coaxing out the roots, one set separate from the other, cutting away life to preserve life.

The whole won't suffer for the loss.

But that didn't mean it was any less of a shame.


End file.
